


Illusion

by MorganaNK



Category: Inspector Lynley - All Media Types, Inspector Lynley Mysteries (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 18:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17730749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganaNK/pseuds/MorganaNK
Summary: Set during 'In Divine Proportion' afterthatscene outside the pub, but before Samantha Walthew's funeral





	Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> Property of Elizabeth George and the BBC, no copyright infringement intended

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay Barbara?”

I leant against the door and smiled at him. “I’m sure. Thank you for everything Sir, I’ll see you at breakfast.”

“You know where I am.”

“I do Sir.”

“Well, I’ll bid you goodnight then.”

“Goodnight Sir.”

I closed the hotel room door and sat down on the bed. He’d wanted to stay with me and, after what had happened, I could understand why, but I didn’t want him to.

I shook my head sadly; that wasn’t true. I wanted nothing more than for him to hold me in his arms again and never let me go, but I also knew that wasn’t going to happen. I had to stand on my own two feet. 

Tommy; for I always thought of him privately as Tommy, even though I never called him anything but sir, had guided me out of the pub, his arm around me, and I had felt the care and compassion in his actions. When I had broken down on him in a tearful snotty mess, he had wrapped me in his embrace and held me securely against him giving me a refuge from my fears and a safe place to fall apart.

A small part of me hated that I had shown weakness in front of him, that I had shown myself to be less than who he thought I was, but the rest of me didn’t care. What had happened, it was what I had needed to happen.

And what I didn’t.

If I were honest, I’d been attracted to Tommy pretty much from the off, not that anyone would have known that from the way we argued, and that was a good thing. He and I were too different, and while that was a bonus for our working relationship and our friendship such as it was, it would be hell on earth for anything else.

Then there was the fact that I wasn’t his type. Men like him dated and married women of equal breeding with legs up to their armpits, women who knew which cutlery to use and could make interesting small talk with the upper classes as well as the hoi polloi. They didn’t take up with rough council house brats like me, even if they did flirt with them while showering and make comments about it being a shame that they wouldn’t get naked. 

I shook my head again. Any hint of a romance between us was just an illusion conjured up by my overactive imagination, but it was one I escaped into regularly. Now I knew what it felt like to be held by him, to feel his warmth, to be surrounded by his scent, my fantasies would be even more graphic. But that’s all they would ever be, they had to be.

I couldn’t risk losing him and what we shared.


End file.
